Tag Archives: St. Mark’s in the Bowery

St. Mark’s Church stands on the site of the chapel built in 1660 by Peter Stuyvesant, the last governor of Dutch New Amsterdam, and its grounds are all that remain of Stuyvesant’s vast “bouwerie,” or farm. Stuyvesant was interred in the family vault beneath the chapel when he died in 1672. During the 18th century, the chapel fell into a state of dilapidation, until little remained except the foundation and the Stuyvesant family vault beneath. In 1793, Stuyvesant’s great-grandson, Peter Stuyvesant IV, donated the chapel property to the Episcopal Church with the stipulation that a new church be erected. Originally intended to be a chapel of Trinity Parish, St. Mark’s in-the-Bowery was completed in 1799 as the first New York City Episcopal parish separate from Trinity. The Stuyvesant vault is still present under the east wall of the church; it was closed permanently when the last family member was interred there in 1953.

St. Mark’s in-the-Bowery in 1836 (NYPL)The churchyard and cemetery of St. Mark’s, 1852 (Dripps 1852)

In addition to the Stuyvesant vault, St. Mark’s had two burial sites attached to its church during the first half of the 19th century—the yards surrounding the church, which were used exclusively for vault interments, and a cemetery further east along 11th Street for conventional graves. Peter Stuyvesant IV donated a 242 x 190 plot just east of 2nd Avenue, between 11th and 12th Streets, for the cemetery in 1803. One of the stipulations in Stuyvesant’s grant of the plot was that any of his present or former slaves and their children have the right to be interred in the burial ground free of charge. An unknown number of individuals were buried at St. Mark’s Cemetery until burials there were prohibited in 1851. The remains from this graveyard were removed to Evergreens Cemetery in Brooklyn in 1864 and residences were built on the site.

The first underground burial vaults were built in the grounds adjoining the church in 1807. In these tombs lie the remains of many important individuals and members of prominent and wealthy families of 19th century New York. Among those interred here are Mayor Philip Hone, English governor Henry Sloughter, and Daniel D. Tompkins, governor of New York and U.S. vice-president under James Monroe. Millionaire A.T. Stewart was interred in a vault in the east yard in 1876; two years later his remains were stolen and reportedly held for ransom. The suspicious events surrounding the theft and rumors of ransom demands were well publicized for several years following the crime. The case was never officially resolved, although some stories hold that Stewart’s widow negotiated the return of the remains in 1881 and reinterred them elsewhere.

“Desecration of the vault of A.T. Stewart,” (Harper’s Weekly, Nov. 16, 1878)The flat vault markers in the east yard can be seen in this view of St. Mark’s from ca. 1925 (Museum of the City of NY)

As the neighborhood surrounding St. Mark’s changed from upper class townhouses to tenement slums during the first half of the 20th century, the churchyard fell into disrepair. The Preservation Youth Project restored it for community use in the 1970s, creating a playground in the east yard and a quiet garden in the west yard. Many of the flat vault markers can still be seen among the newer pavements.

Vault marker’s in the gravel surface of the east yard, 2008 (Mary French)St. Mark’s west yard, 2008 (Mary French)

The French Church of Saint Esprit in 1807, located near the northeast corner of Nassau and Pine streets. The graveyard can be seen at the rear of the church, extending to Cedar Street (Bridges 1807)

Founded in 1688 to serve French-speaking Protestants of New Amsterdam, the congregation of the French Church of Saint Esprit had their church near the northeast corner of Nassau and Pine streets from 1704 to 1831. Their burial ground was to the rear of the church, extending north to Cedar Street. An 1830 article in the New-York Mirror described the church and graveyard:

This antiquated building, which is the oldest religious edifice now in the city, was erected in 1704 by the Huguenots, or French protestants . . . It is built in the plainest style, being constructed of stone, and plastered on the outside, with a very steep roof, and monastic looking tower . . . The building, which is 70 feet in length and 50 in breadth, has a southwest aspect, fronting on Pine street, just below Nassau street, and the tower is in the rear towards Cedar street, where a few moulding tombstones are still to be seen in the cemetery, behind the law buildings. (New-York Mirror July 17, 1830)

This 1905 engraving from Samuel Hollyer’s series of Old New York scenes depicts an 18th century view of the French Church and graveyard (NYPL)

In February of 1831, the congregation sold the church building and property and moved to a new building at Church and Franklin Streets. The graves in the churchyard were removed, and the congregation had remains of those that had not been claimed by their families reinterred in a vault that they had purchased at the cemetery of St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery. The property at Pine and Nassau streets was subsequently developed for business purposes, as Gabriel P. Disosway described in 1865:

L’Eglise du Saint Esprit, the French Protesant Church in Pine street, opposite the custom-house, was founded in the year 1704 . . . In our day it has been demolished, its dead removed, and the venerable sacred place, like many others in our busy city, is now devoted to mammon. Lawyers’ offices, custom-house brokers, a restaurant and lager-bier saloon, occupy the once hallowed spot.

Sources: Bridges’ 1807 Plan of the city of New-York; The Earliest Churches of New York and Its Vicinity (Disoway 1865), 121; The Huguenot Church of New York: A History of the French Church of Saint Esprit (John A.F. Maynard 1938) 231, 256.